


Midnight and Dawn

by Luthien



Category: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Genre: Angst, Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-01-24
Updated: 2002-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ares watches Iphicles sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight and Dawn

**Midnight.**

The moonlight streams in through the palace window and illuminates the Royal bedchamber. A large bed dominates the room, its head taking up almost half the length of the Northern wall. A sleeper lies crosswise on the bed, shrouded in a humble cotton sheet that seems out of place against the heavy brocade bed curtains embroidered with thread of gold.

Apart from the lavish hangings on the bed, the room is furnished with a distinct lack of the sort of ostentation that befits a king. The few pieces of furniture are spaced at odd intervals along the walls, as though there were once other objects cluttering up the space between them. It's as though someone decided to redecorate and then lost heart after disposing of most of the old things, never bothering to replace them. Spartan, one might call that austerity - except that this is Corinth.

The night is overly hot for so late in the year and the sleeper turns restlessly, the sheet riding down to reveal a broad chest, and more. The moonlight picks out the contours of his body, highlighting his skin in a sheen of sweat.

A dark figure emerges from the shadows on the far side of the room. He crosses the floor unhurriedly, self-assured rather than hesitant. Once by the bed, he stops, arms folded. Standing and staring. Contemplating the man who sleeps in such disquiet.

* * *

It's not a restful sleep that holds you prisoner in its grip tonight. Someone might worry about you, if there was anyone here to see you tossing and turning like this. But there's no one here who cares what dreams might haunt your sleep. There's no one left who loves you. There's no one here but me.

I don't love you, of course, and it's just as well that I don't love you. If I did, I might worry about you - or worse, pity you. No, this way's better. We know where we stand; there's no chance of any liberties being taken. None by you, that is. And this way, at least, there's a respect between us that lovers in love never know. Respect of a sort, anyway - the sort that comes from knowing your place and not forgetting it. In your case, that means any place and any time I please. That's what it's all about when it comes right down to it: what pleases me.

And it pleases me to be with you, here and now. It pleases me to watch you while you sleep. It pleases me to watch you wrestle with those inner demons while your body tries in vain to rest. Worried that Hercules might find out about our little arrangement? He wouldn't like that, would he?

If you could hear me my laughter would wake you for sure. But you can't hear me. Like all the gods, I walk in silence on the mortal plane. Unless I choose otherwise, of course.

Never forget that. I can choose to do anything I please. And it's a negligible choice, hardly worthy of comment, when a god decides to fuck a mortal. Even a king. Even the brother of my father's son, two degrees removed from a deity, yet hopelessly mortal just the same.

Inconsequential.

The act of bedding you is hardly worthy of comment so far as I am concerned. That's not how everyone would see it, though, is it? Just imagine our brother's reaction to that particular piece of information. It's very tempting to test it out on him right now, in fact. Very, very tempting. But I won't do it. Not yet. It's something to be savoured, when the time is right. When he thinks he's won.

For now, I will make do with watching you.

Just look at you, lying there like some... king. It's not how you thought it would be, being king, is it? But now you're stuck with it and it's all you are. No longer a warrior, no longer a son, no longer a husband, never a father - just a king. Oh, and a brother. Let's not forget that. It's the one thing you'd like to get away from, that you long to discard, and it's the only thing that hasn't abandoned you like all the others. You'll be brother-of-the-hero to the bitter end. You think that that's all people see, don't you? Well, there's some merit in that point of view. It's the obvious starting point. It was _my_ starting point. I freely admit that.

I thought, at first, that you would be like _him_. I expected a fight. An argument. Objections. Resistance. But you gave me none of those.

Your submission aroused suspicion in me at first. And then I looked deeper and caught a glimpse of what was driving you. That was when you became a pleasant surprise to me, all the more so for the unexpectedness of your character. Who would have thought that a son of Alcmene would turn out to be so... lacking in so much of what Hercules holds so dear? I always thought that mile-wide moralistic streak in Hercules must have come from the mortal side. It certainly wasn't inherited from Zeus. My father can try the moralistic tone but his own hypocrisy's not lost on him, even if the old charlatan pretends otherwise.

Before I first saw you, the thought of corrupting you was... delicious. Strangely, I wasn't disappointed when I discovered that you weren't the pale reflection of Hercules that I had expected. Somehow, it was even better when I found that you were already corrupted, twisted inside, so different from the glorious exterior. It was all the better that that darkness was Hercules' creation rather than mine.

But it became mine. You became mine. Freely dedicated to me. My prize. Almost, I could love that.

 _That_ , not _you_. Don't presume too much. Mortality lies only a little way down that path. Of course, I could love you if I wanted to. If you were just that little bit more worthy of me - but it's pointless to speculate, since that little bit is a vast chasm that no mortal could ever bridge. Don't get the idea that just because I don't choose to love - have never chosen to love - that I'm incapable of the emotion, though. Nothing is beyond me, and those that think it safe to underestimate me in anything would do well to remember that. Yes, I could love if I decided to. But not loving goes with the territory of being War, and so my decision remains what it has always been and will always be.

Love wouldn't sit well with my business. I was from the beginning, am now and always shall be the embodiment of war, for all time. It's what I was born to be. If I was really meant to love - or care - I'd have been charged with the responsibility for one of those whimpy aspects, like babbling brooks or hearts and flowers. Tartarus! What a mental image. Reminds me of that limp-wristed pansy who...

As I said, war and love simply don't mix - not in this universe, anyway - and that's the way it should be.

War might be the antithesis of love, but it certainly provides an atmosphere conducive to fucking, just the same. Human desperation. You can feel it in the soldiers waiting for the signal to attack, in the cities under the siege, and in the camp followers, wondering what they'll do for their bread if their protectors get wiped out. There it is: the need to affirm their existence in the face of Hades' promise. War's the most powerful aphrodisiac known to mortals. Typical that they don't recognise it as such. They'd rather dress up the realities of sex in the long looks and soft sighs of Aphrodite's domain than face the seductive cut and thrust of battle.

I know better, and so would they if they had the courage to admit it. But then, they're mortals, aren't they? Just like you. Or maybe not quite like you. Sometimes I think that there's something in you that makes you different from the rest. Perhaps it's that searing jealousy that consumes you whenever you think of the brother that links us. Such a very strong emotion, as destructive as it is weak. I reject weakness, and yet all that is destructive in the world is akin to war and thus mine.

Just as you are mine, in body and mind.

I know you hold back from me when we're together. I can feel it. That stubborn determination not to show me what you feel. It's pointless, really. I've experienced that sort of devotion before. It's natural for mortals to feel that way when chosen as the bedmate of a god. You really think I don't know?

Of course it's obvious that you love me - though you try to hide it. You almost succeed at it most of the time. Pathetic mortal, prey to the weaker emotions, however much you struggle.

And you do struggle. Constantly. Trying to recapture half-forgotten strength, while you dwindle away into... into a king. You're not much of a prize these days. Look at you, lying there, begging for it even in your dreams as you show off your body as unashamedly as a hetaera. Whore. Tramp. Just begging for it, aren't you? Where's the soldier that you once were? You remember what it was like to be a soldier, don't you? The tumult of battle thundering through you. The shock of it all. The noise. They didn't tell you how loud it would be, did they? It only took one battle to turn a frightened, angry boy, into a grim, determined, still angry man. Of course it did. The only other option for any soldier is death.

How many times have you cheated Hades since then? Pathetic mortal, still trying to prove yourself even after all this time. There's no divine blood flowing in your veins - that's your brother's curse. You'll never match him in any contest you choose. You'll always be the lesser brother in every way that counts - in every way that counts to you, anyway. Yet there's more to you than most, at least to my way of thinking. Stubborn and angry and twisted. A useful weapon, held in reserve for when Hercules least expects it. And entertaining. So very entertaining. It's almost enough. Certainly enough to keep my interest for the moment. Even without considering your strategic value, I'd rather keep you than not.

Really, it's just as well that I don't love you, that you aren't that little bit more worthy. Because if you were, and if I did, I'd have to let you go.

But none of that matters now. Deeds are what I want from you, not words or sentiment.

Wake up, Iphicles! It's time for action.

* * *

 ****

 **Dawn.**

The dawn breaks, framed by the Eastern window. Now there are two forms lying crosswise on the bed, tangled together in the mess of sheets. The first real light of the day streaks in and touches the face of one of the sleepers.

The King of Corinth stirs in sudden discomfort beneath the hard, masculine body sprawled possessively across him, and thinks longingly of the soft embrace of his dead queen.


End file.
